Dhaka, April 15 -- State Minister for Planning Zonayed Abdur Rahim Saki on Wednesday said the government is placing the highest priority to rapidly exploring and utilising the country's own energy resources to address the fuel crisis triggered by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

"For a long time, the failure to fully exploit Bangladesh's promising gas fields was due to a lack of rigs and weak capacity. Despite various international surveys pointing to significant gas potential in Bangladesh, that went untapped for 17 long years," he told journalists after the first meeting of the Advisory Committee formed to counsel the General Economics Division of the Planning Commission at Agargaon.

Noting that institutions like Bangladesh Pe...